Deaf for a Day

I can’t say that in my wildest dreams I could have imagined what the loss of sound would mean to me. In some degree I have always had contact with the Deaf community ever since I was born because my father grew up Deaf. I’ve met many of his closest friends, been to potlucks, watch movies in closed captioning (and subsequently got in trouble for turning the off). My dad is my hero, someone I admire very much and not because he had to overcome very difficult challenges but because when it comes down to it, he is the best dad a son could ask for. In reality I never saw Deafness as a barrier between communicating with him though it provided many experiences unique to growing up as a child of a deaf adult (coda). There were times where I was able to enjoy the music as loud as I wanted, sneak up on him, and wonder what magical powers he possessed in order to catch me doing something I wasn’t supposed to (still in awe today). But from the perspective I gained in a short twenty four hours I can see what one might not have the opportunity to share in and at times it makes me sad. Not because one is limited in the ability to enjoy life even if they are Deaf but because there is so much I would want to share with them, to make them understand precious things that I value in my life. I don’t why it is that some people are called upon in this life to be Deaf or hearing, rich or poor, Caucasian or black but it the grand scheme of things it’s what we personally make of our lives that matters. Who we are and what we mean to others that will be remembered. It is up to each of us to make our mark upon this earth with the time we have upon this mortal plane. With that I would like to share a few of the observations I made while spending my day Deaf.

First and foremost one of the things I lost was the ability to easily communicate. This is the desire I think of every sentient being, to commune with others of a like mind, to share in thought and feeling the challenges that life present. A while back I was sharing with my dad a few of the things I had been learning in my Deaf Studies class when I asked him about his thoughts about his Deafness. One of the things he mentioned was that in his life he had not had much of a desire to hear things but that hearing would allow him to do some things better and that communicating was the most prominent thing that he wanted. Speech plays a big part of my daily life and in the lives of those around me. As soon as I wasn’t able to hear what my wife said I began to realize that I in fact had lost one of the tools that I needed to access the support of those around me. It became readily apparent in the car when again and again we couldn’t because of the barrier of Deafness share simple things. Because we haven’t had much time together my wife, Brynn, doesn’t know much American Sign Language (ASL), so as she dropped me off at school we were limited to a brief exchange of culminating in one of the few signs she has down (both in signing it and reading it), “I love you”. This would be one that we frequently came back to as we spent the many hours together trying to make sense of what one another’s gestures and body language. I could not bear it. I had chosen this particular day for many reasons and among them was that it would afford me time to spend at home with my wife and that we could share in the experience of being Deaf. This is something that my dad, along with millions of others have to deal with on a daily basis, it is their reality. Yet the strain of out not being able to bear our souls to one another was weighing down upon us and grew increasing frustrating and though we couldn’t talk, I could see. One exchange during dinner was particularly disheartening because we weren’t able to simply recount our days, something that has become a habit whenever we sit down to eat dinner. Now granted, being able to bless the food in ASL was really special because it reminded me of the very sacred experiences where I was called upon to interpret at church and being able to show that to Brynn was very special. As dinner progressed and I tried everything; finger spelling, sign, writing, gesturing, what would have taken maybe a minute or two progressed to a seemingly all night affair, through dinner and games communication crawled at a snails pace as we searched for the best way to bond. Ultimately we gave in and watched a favorite TV program of ours, “Flight of the Conchords”, because even though we subscribe to Netflix and are able to stream thousands of movies through our television very few of the movies are subtitled (typically foreign movies). In fact a while back when in ASL class, we had been shown the website for the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), I noted that one of the posts linked to a letter that the NAD had sent the company in hopes of calling them out on the lack of captioning and options that are currently being offered for Deaf people to receive the full value of their Netflix subscriptions. This is something that I personally have encountered in the past when showing my dad how great Netflix was and the things that could be done the deal breaker was the fact that the site does not caption the movies that it streams, and that is a shame in this day and age. Because of this we watched our DVD of “Flight of the Conchords” because our present options were limited. Even then from my past experience with the show what I viewed was only a shell of what I had known. Flight of the Conchords is a band as well as a show and most of the humor is in fact derived from the music that the duo creates. There are subtle nuances to how the music interplays with the acting and music that really make the show dynamic and as we watched (because I had asked Brynn watch an episode with no sound) a lot of the humor was lost in translation. After only two episodes I had grown somewhat weary of missing out on whole lot of what was being voiced and played through the speakers.

I felt one of the objectives of this project and paper was to help us to visualize what the daily interactions of a Deaf person with the world at large. For me personally that includes using the phone, riding the bus, and going to class most days of the week. It means spending time with people who are not as patient or loving as my wife and who may not have the time to slow down and communicate with me. This is why I made sure that the time I spent Deaf would be one that included a necessary excursion into the outside world. I do have to admit that I choose to go to my Deaf Studies class on this day because I wanted to be able to have to rely upon the use of Sign Language as my main mode of communication and because there are interpreters who use ASL and my teacher is Deaf I knew that I would able to successfully accomplish this endeavor. Luckily I had a guide in how to act Deaf in the classroom, Chewy. I had observed him at time throughout this term and had gleaned some ideas of the things that a Deaf person would need in order to set themselves up to be successful in the class. Above all else would be the need to receive information both from the teacher and the students. I had observed that Chewy always sat in spot near the front where he could see both the teacher and the interpreters who communicated the students and teachers remarks to one another. He also was very attentive moving back and forth between interpreter and teacher, which I cannot say that I am. In my experience I often doodle between taking down notes and sharing in class because it helps me to concentrate on the speaker while occupying some truant part of my mind. In doing so I rely upon the one thing that I would not have in being Deaf and that is the ability to hear speech. I made a few mistakes though the course of the night including being one of the last ones there because when I arrived there were few seats available and the ones that were open towards the front did not provide the best view of my teacher as he signed. Often he found his way towards the computer and behind the monitor when he presented a new slide and that would obscure his signs. I don’t think I will pay a dear price for it in the long run but if this was the situation that occurred week after week I am not sure how I would be able to keep my grades up and receive the information that I needed to succeed. I also suffered at the hands of my greatest weakness when it comes to knowing ASL and that is reception of signs. Growing up I never was able to fine-tune that because my dad is able to speak. That is one of the reasons that I have chosen to take this class is because I feel in order to overcome this weakness I need to expose myself to as much sign as possible and a variety of people who sign. Because as I have found out in a short twenty-four hours, communication is everything, it is how we interact with one another and the world and if I can help facilitate communication between the hearing world and the Deaf world I think the world will be that much better. We will have access to one another’s souls and be able to share what is special about each one of us.